I didn’t set out to do this work.
Jerilyn Ito
Looking back, I can see that the way I made decisions in my own life was always different, but it has always felt completely normal, and I never thought to question it. In a way, I’ve always quietly resisted the voices of others who said otherwise.
And this showed up how I made decisions throughout my life.
When I decided to apply to nursing school, it wasn’t because I had a clear plan or had thought everything through. I did look into it to better understand what was involved, but the decision itself didn’t come from what I learned.
It was the same when I got married, and later when I made the decision to leave. As I moved from one role to another within the hospital system, then an opportunity came that led me into the federal health system at a time when the hospital was beginning to face financial challenges and eventually dissolved a few years later. I continued to move between roles there as well.
Before each move, I looked into it like anyone else would. But in hindsight, I can see that my decisions didn’t come from that. They came from somewhere within me—a connection within myself to where I was at that point in my life, where I seemed to know this is it.
I didn’t have the words for it then, and even now I can’t fully explain how it all came about. I just know that I trusted the decision and moved forward.
At some point, I began to notice that people would come to me to talk about decisions they were facing, whether in their work or personal life.
What I found was that although they were looking for advice, it wasn’t advice they needed. They wanted to understand what was happening in the situation that they couldn’t see, but I could. Often, what they could not see was how their own patterns of processing and responding were influencing what was becoming present within the decision. And once they saw it, what had felt unclear became clear, and they knew how to move forward.
In the end, it wasn’t about reviewing it further or trying to understand it further. It was about seeing what was already there.
And this is what became my work, and what I now do with others.
Because when you see it for what it is, the decision is clear.